Daily Lesson for April 15, 2014

We continue our Daily Lessons from the last week of Jesus' life. Yesterday Jesus disrupted the marketplace in the Temple courtyard. Now the following:

27 And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, 28 and they said to him, "By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” 29 Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. 30 Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”

Here is the first of two stories which demonstrate Jesus' political smarts.

After disrupting the Temple, Jesus is confronted by the religious authorities. At least some of these men were already considering having Jesus killed. "With what kind of authority are you doing these things?" they ask. Jesus says he'll answer where he gets his authority so long as they answer where they think John the Baptist got his authority.

John was the last and greatest prophet of ancient Judaism. Born into the priestly line, John would by birthright also have been a priest. But in adulthood he rejected the religious system in Jerusalem and formed an anti-establishment Judaism in the wilderness where he taught against ethnic pride, economic exploitation and military oppression. The community he founded was an ascetic one, dedicated to simplicity of life, the sharing of possessions and the study of Torah.  It was open to anyone who would chose to come and live in its way. John's community was an obvious rejection of the lavishly set apart lifestyle of the religious elites in Jerusalem.  Thousands came to be baptized by John there. After his execution, John's popularity rose to a kind of folk hero status among the masses. 

The religious elites in Jerusalem, though often the objects of John's contempt while he was alive, knew John was too popular to speak against in his death.

"Where did John the Baptist get the authority to do the things he did? Was it a human thing or God thing?"

We do not know," those confronting Jesus said.

"Well then," Jesus said, "neither will I tell you where I get my authority."

Jesus' point was clear: if you can't recognize the things John did as God things, then you won't be able to recognize the things Jesus was doing either.

And that was another reason to go ahead and have him killed.